THE WHOLE HISTORY OF POLAND
Hello Friends:
Welcome to Countries Facts so Today in this Article I will show you the whole history of Poland if you live in central or eastern europe you probably grew up hearing the folk tale of the three brothers leche and roose the three legendary patriarchs of the slavic peoples while out on a hunting trip the brothers had a disagreement as brothers do on which prey to follow leading them to split up czech the eldest of the brothers followed his prey to the czech lands bruce the youngest went east and became the founder of russia and lach in the middle founded poland because who cares about consistency the tale differs slightly from place to place but many include that lekh travelled north as he followed a beautiful white eagle the eagle landed in its nest at sunset and looked very breathtaking against the red sky left took this for an omen and decided that the land would be his new home the white eagle is still a symbol of poland blazoned against the red sky of their flag indeed poland did begin with slavic settlements the slavs are likely a civilization that emerged as remnants of the early indo-european peoples who had migrated out of the caucasus from their homeland in central europe they began to expand and migrate in response to the weakening of the roman empire you'll remember this from previous episodes as the great migration period the poles love their new home which they shared with germanic tribes from scandinavia and the occasional asian nomadic raiders the slavs of poland were organized into smaller tribes living in and around the baltic sea and the vistula river delta they united under poland's first official leader miyashko meishko was a duke of the poland this was a good gig to have since the tribe eventually became the name of the whole country poland mieshko was a member of the noble house of piast whose dynasty would rule poland for centuries with his baptism in 1966 the country slowly abandoned traditional slavic paganism and adopted western christianity miyashko's son baleswa the brave expanded the territory south into what he hoped would be a strong regional power but alas it was a bit too early for that still he established the metropolitan sea at kenyezno forming the headquarters of what would become the catholic church in poland his consolidation of power led him to be crowned poland's first official king and then he died all in the same year which is great the ps dynasty was somewhat up and down and internal conflicts often plagued with the royal court until this guy kashmir the restorer restored the monarchy's control which come to think of it is probably why they called him the restorer he modernized poland into a feudalist society which came with all its cool things like knights and lords and castles this helped secure the borders who up until now had changed depending on who was king the early kingdom somewhat weaker than its neighbors and strapped for cash did however hold the mongol invasion into europe having been sacked twice before notable of this time was the polish relationship with the germans whose dukes and lords had come to possess large amounts of the west and the teutonic knights who had carved out a significant state for themselves in livonia and prussia a land inhabited by pagans frequently raided by crusaders by the time p.s rule ended with kashmir the great poland had lost much of its territory to its neighbors but with a period of peace the state soon began to prosper and attract jewish settlement the counties in this area became a source of contention between the kings of poland and the holy roman empire who fought over the local lords for fealty and allegiance this resulted in these counties being very mixed with populations of people from both kingdoms the whole thing was very unbohemian really the jews first settled poland as merchants on popular trade routes by this century the jewish people had settled in great numbers over many kingdoms in europe and began their long and very sad history they were expelled by the masses in all the countries they settled and were often victims of massacres and worse crusades successive expulsions led the population in poland to swell which was a comparatively more tolerant society which became a center of judaic learning and culture as the centuries continued however things weren't always super peachy and anti-jewish riots often erupted in polish towns and synagogues were frequently burned king kashmir the great dying without an heir left his kingdom to his nephew lewis the king of hungary lewis left his now three kingdoms to his daughters one of whom died unexpectedly the other who was supposed to inherit poland but inherited hungary instead and the last one jadwiga who got poland the nobles of poland welcomed lewis's daughter and crowned her king yes king not queen don't ask jedriga's life would not be unlike a medieval television drama as she was simultaneously engaged to both the grand duke of lithuania ugala whose kingdom was huge and powerful and the habsburg duke of austria who was inbred and fat i think she made the right choice the union of yadriga and vladislav formed the polish lithuanian union which was now the largest country in europe under a single monarchy the lithuanians had become a strong military power in the previous century capturing large amounts of russian and mongol land the now combined countries spread from the baltic to the black sea the lithuanians with their far smaller population never ventured too far from their castles why would you and prefer to rule ruthenia from livonia instead so by the time of the union the much larger polish population came to dominate the ruthenia lands spreading the language and the culture eventually dwarfing their livonian allies the teutonic order that german state on the baltic had become somewhat of a bad neighbor leading raids crusades and plundering castles or otherwise stumbling drunk into polish lithuanian territory starting fires and whatnot the union of the two states proved beneficial handing the knights a crushing defeat at the battle of grunwald in 1410 they also fought numerous wars with the muscovites tartars and ottomans noteworthy of the galleon period was the efficiency of the feudal system and the pseudo-democratic nature of the parliament who set up sophisticated bureaucracy for king approval or disapproval if you are unlucky within just a few decades the teutonic order had completely lost their state with the western half being annexed directly into poland and the rest becoming a faith over the polish crown this gave access of poland to the prosperous baltic seaport and an explosion in trade keep your eye on this it becomes important later the prussian faith would later be inherited by a duke from brandenburg a state within the holy roman empire a trend which would become ever more troublesome as lords within the hre would increasingly inherit lands outside the imperial borders the hre was weird don't worry about it acquiring danzig or kodayansk had huge economic benefits and cities swelled in size in response to the trade boom like poznan le rouve and the capital krakow and most notably warsaw warsaw or varsheva in polish was up to this point just a small fishing village legend has it that a fisherman named varsh happened upon a mermaid in the vistula river named shava the two married and found the town of archeva the poles like most europeans were often embroiled in wars and this made famous their heavy cavalry the winged hussars which i'm sure i'll be mobbed and lynched if i don't talk about initially a contingent of hungarian mercenaries the hussars soon became an elite shock cavalry so powerful they allowed the poles to win many otherwise hopeless battles the hussars became the envy of europe the most powerful and disciplined heavy cavalry the middle ages had ever known and are still a matter of intense national symbolism of poland the 16th century was a really big one and included the protestant reformation affecting mostly german parts of the kingdom wars against the encroaching ottomans invading europe advancing in science and literature with copernicus devising the helocentric model of the solar system the nationwide codification of the polish language and the biggest one the changing of the polish lithuanian union into the polish-lithuanian commonwealth a single political entity ratified by the polish parliament or same with elected rather than hereditary kings the polish lithuanian commonwealth or just poland for short became a center of power and commerce and a bull walk against invading turks would become a larger and larger problem for the european powers since their humble beginnings in central asia during the polish muscovite war the poles became involved in the russian succession crisis or the time of troubles and began flexing their muscles with their famous hussars they even occupied moscow for a short period but were soon driven out because invading russia is simply impossible unless you are the mongols the series of northern wars and the russo-polish war left the commonwealth in a very precarious and weakened state this was aggravated by the election of polish kings which opened the door for other nations to meddle in polish affairs which they did a lot during the wars the commonwealth lost the territory of livonia and was devastated by the so-called swedish deluge leaving much of the nation in ruins poland became weakened during the great northern war against sweden and during the war of the polish succession it became increasingly clear that poland's fate was going to be decided by its neighbors the polish parliament became ineffective due to complicated veto laws which made passing reforms or mounting resistance to invasion nothing if not impossible the political limbo and the sheer size of the commonwealth started to make cutting pieces out of it look pretty attractive the last king of poland stanislav ii was elected in 1764 as a puppet of the russian empire aided greatly by the fact that he was in bed with catherine the great stanislav did attempt reform to try and save face but was aware the kingdom was on its last breath before long the first partition of poland was enacted dividing the outlying provinces between austria prussia and russia in dire straits the parliament was powerless to stop the invading troops and forced to ratify the new borders the great same tried once more to reform by drafting a formal constitution inspired by the liberties of the french revolution but it was enough to provoke russia again who saw france as an enemy and poland as a sympathizer to anti-monarchical sentiments pro and anti-constitutional forces became embroiled in a war and russian forces invaded to broker a defeat to the republican movement with an agreement signed with prussia the two nations annexed more territory in the second partition reducing poland to one-third its size and population the king was horrifically unpopular the army was in shambles the parliament was divided and powerless the common people were furious and insurrections led to the national rebellion led by the military veteran tedeos kosciuszko after an initial success the rebels failed to garner support from many other nations and were defeated by the surrounding powers in 1795 the austrians prussians and russians decided to put an end to the rebellious polls and invaded them from three sides the third partition of poland as it became known wiped poland off the face of the map for the next century millions of poles now found themselves subject to whichever nation they were divided into isolated from one another and poland ceased to exist now as you all know if you've ever picked up a map poland did indeed return as a sovereign nation Goodbye.
